The Book Architecture Method. Stuart Horwitz.

I assume the PWC brain trust schedules high energy presentations for the end of the day. Such was the case Friday with Dan Maguire on creativity and Saturday with Stuart Horwitz @Book_Arch
on Book Architecture. http://www.bookarchitecture.com/ I was a bit suspicious at the outset. I feared Horwitz was about to talk about my cousins.
As a young teen I lived in Caracas for a couple years. At the time I was very close to my three cousins, all boys, who ranged in age between my little sister and me. My oldest cousin had an elegant bookshelf with glass doors filled with the Espasa-Calpe encyclopedia, the world’s largest, I suspect. My cousins put to good use the 100+ volumes, each the thickness of three bibles, each tome lettered in elegant gold letters on a black spine, by using them as bricks with which to build fortifications, which they needed for their battles, when they threw stuff at each other. And they threw everything at each other.
I did love that encyclopedia. It had everything in it. If you had a paper to write you didn’t have to look anywhere else. Sort of a Google/Lego predecessor. That massive encyclopedia, albeit used in such an unorthodox way, served my cousins well: two became architects.
Fortunately Stuart Horwitz had other things in mind. He probably doesn’t know my cousins.
Stuart spoke of “The Three drafts.” That’s how many you need, provided you take the time between drafts to do certain things. [A shock to people like me who have drafts with Roman numerals exceeding the latest Superbowl]
Of course, when Horwitz defines a draft, he isn’t talking about tinkering. Taking commas out is tinkering. It is important to know which draft you are in.
1st draft. It is about “Pantsing” (writing by the seat of your pants) vs. outlining, which you should do between 1st and 2nd draft.
To get to that 1st draft,
1.- Count your words. You can’t simultaneously create and know the value of what you have created. You can set goals. A great session for him is 1,750 but he is happy with 1,000 words a day. I recall Jonathan Maberry saying that he writes 4,000 words a day. Sounds like a lot, but you need to consider Maberry is a big guy.
2.- Find a neutral audience. Not the critics (or naysayers) nor the cheerleaders (Aunt Thelma). A writing group ought to fill that need fairly well.
3.- Don’t try to organize anything.
4.- Make the time. That follows Maguire’s (and everyone else’s advise as well) but don’t count the time, that’s not the point. Make the time and from then on write. Remember point #1: count the words.
5.- Listen.
6.- Have fun. The most important aspect.
The good news (and bad) is that the first draft is the easy part.
Scene, series and theme.
Horwitz said to keep it moving. Don’t be Lot’s wife. Don’t look back. Stay away from salt.
Intelligent Planning is not the enemy of creativity.
Brainstorm all the scenes. But don’t look at the manuscript. Highlight the good scenes (by intuition) don’t tinker. Lots of things could be better.
This may be a good point to explain that Stuart does this for a living. He is an expert on book structure and book revision and has written two books on the subject, so this lecture was a quick overview.
Between drafts 1 and 2, he suggests locating the missing scenes. Those are the ones you want to write. So you should, but keep in mind, they are 1st draft scenes. And you also should erase some scenes, those are the ones you don’t remember. Repetition and variation form the core of narrative.
If a character, a place, or an object only appears once, we can’t track it or assign it any meaning. If they reappear, and/or change, then we can get excited.
If you can live without a scene, there is no way to justify bringing it through all the drafts and hopefully to a reader’s attention. Limitation is the key to revision. And nothing limits your action, your cast, your plethora of worthwhile ideals better than a good theme.
The 2nd of 3 action steps is to cut up your scenes. Print them. Spread them. Give them names. Each scene needs to be able to stand on its own. This is the best way to figure out what belongs in the draft and what doesn’t. Now you can start making an outline.
Stuart shared pictures of J K Rowlands grids for one of the Harry Potter Books. http://bit.ly/1K0LdfR A sort of spread sheet where each line is a time period, like a day, and each column a chapters, or scene, or plot point, etc. Joseph Heller did the same; he wrote his in pencil.
Stuart spoke of the archery target. This time you arrange your scenes as a practice target, with the theme as the bulls eye. Then you place your scenes around the theme, closer or farther from bull’s eye/theme based on relevance. Obviously what you are doing is selecting relevant scenes.
There is a method to discover your theme. Your book can only be about one thing. [He might have been inspired by Jack Palance in City Slickers] You gotta believe (in the validity of that one thing)
I think Stuart believes that having a single, clear theme is crucial.
“Its not how you fall in life, its how you get up” originality isn’t important for the theme, originality isn’t important.
2nd draft. This is where you bring up the best parts up a level. Make it better. If you’re in the second draft, remember what you’re looking out to fix, but also what isn’t broken. http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/01/30/book-architecture/
Between 2nd and 3rd draft bring in the beta reader. Someone who can give you a good idea of what needs to be changed. The ideal is between 3 and 7 beta readers.
But along the text, your beta reader gets a questionnaire. Some mechanism for you to understand why he/she likes/dislikes, etc., some way for you to evaluate the evaluator. Maybe the beta reader of your ghost story hates ghosts stories. That would be good to know, when evaluating her input.
3rd draft
If you’re in the third draft, think commando raid, get in and get out. Keep it moving. Hit it and get out. Just go to the places you want to fix. Make decisions. It will never be perfect.
That’s about what I got. Obviously he has a method and we got to see an overview. Hope it helps, if not, you know who to call. (Hint: not me)
On second thought, maybe Stuart Horwitz does know my cousins. One married a Horwitz.